A review by syllareads
The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

They say hunting monsters will turn you into one. That isn't what's happening now. Sometimes to kill a dragon, you have to remember that you breathe fire too. This isn't a becoming: it's a revealing. I've been a monster all along.

I still cannot quite believe that this book is Micaiah Johnson's debut because it's just so flawlessly executed in almost every single way. The Space between Worlds is a scifi novel about humankind discovering that there's more than one reality - but to travel between the 380 worlds their sensors managed to pick up, your doppelganger in the one world you intend to travel to has to be dead. Otherwise, the travel will kill you, as the world (or Nyame, as the traversers call the void between worlds, or perhaps their goddess, no one is really sure) will kill you since there can ever be only one person of each kind in a world.

Cara is dead in almost every one of these realities - in all, in fact, but 8. And so she's one of her company's most requested traversers; right up until she gets a call that another of her dops (a slang adopted by traversers to talk about their doppelgangers in other worlds) has died in world 175. What seems to be just a normal mission exposes things she's never bothered to look at closely before, right up until she can no longer ignore them.

This book effortlessly talks about racism, exploitation of those suppressed by a system no one in power cares to dismantle, and domestic abuse all the while serving up a deliciously, deliriously dangerous plot Cara gets swept away with. Johnson's language is beautiful and evocative, leaving you craving for more once you close the book for the very last time. Cara's inner self, rough from her life on the outskirts of society, beautiful from within her very own heart, honest and craving, and surviving is laid bare to us within less than 350 pages. Her feelings for Dell, her watcher, a woman who accompanies her on her missions to faraway realities via headset, are sharp and painful, because for all her wanting, she's convinced Dell will never want her back - and yet, she cannot help herself.

I fell in love with this book and I can only recommend it to everyone else!
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